May 2, 2012
World map with place names swapped out for their original meanings
The “Atlas of True Names“…
…reveals the etymological roots, or original meanings, of the familiar terms on today’s maps…
For instance, where you would normally expect to see the Sahara indicated, the Atlas gives you “The Tawny One”, derived from Arab. es-sahra “the fawn coloured, desert”….
(via Weasel King)
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actually, america was named after a very early explorer.
Um, I would assume that most of the places in the US would be translations of their original Native names, and have nothing to do with any explorer or cartographer – Why do people always assume that nothing had a name until white people came along and gave it one?
Um, I think she’s talking about the name of the country being translated to mean home ruler, not the names of the places within it. Don’t be so quick to assume someone is trying to offend you or that white people think we named everything. If you looked at some of the names of things on the map you’d know that’s not true.
I live in the Great Lakes area, almost everything has a Native Name, you might recognise some: Chicago, Milwaukee, Mississippi River, Muskego, Mucwanago, Waukesha, Waukegan, Oconomowoc, Waunakee, Michigan, Illinois, I could go on and on, just look at a map of the great lakes regions if you need Native names.
Yes, but “Amerigo” also can be translated into English words, just like many other names. Amerigo is the Italian version of a whole family of related names: Americus, Emmerich, Almeric, Ermelrich, Heimrich, Hemricus or Ermenrich. The map makers went with Heimrich – (which became Henry), which means home (Heim) power (ric).
No, Amerigo Vespucci was a map maker.
I am pretty sure Amerigo has an original meaning- much like Andrew comes from the greek word ‘andros’ meaning ‘man’.
That said, this is in the top 10 posts I’ve discovered on 22 words. I LOVE ETYMOLOGY SO MUCH!
No, Amerigo Vespucci was a Cartographer
Amerigo Vespucci (March 9, 1454 – February 22, 1512) was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer.
a cartographer IS a mapmaker.
Ooh, I live right between muddy pool and boiling river town. Cool.
Alice, it doesn’t sound all that comfy there….just sayin’
The name of my town remains unchanged…
Somebody’s been making all of this up – it’s a load of rubbish. Maybe they should call it “Basurissima” or something.
Surprise! In fact, all place names everywhere have been made up. Who’d a’thunkit? (Probably the people living there now, hopefully.)
Yes, America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, but “Amerigo” had to mean something, didn’t it?
America was NOT named after Amerigo Vespucci, that is simply what is taught in public schhols – and it is a lie. If you actually studied the roots of America and its “founders” you would see that the word “America” was a masonic adoption with a little darker etymological roots that can be found in cultures like the Aztecs – and it does have an interesting meaning. Shalom
Why is Nicaragua just Nicaragua?
yeah! wth?
love this.
Got a little lazy with Santo Domingo and the Dominican Republic.
Sunday’s Republic and Holy Sunday should be The Republic of the Lord and The Person of Extraordinary Holiness who Serves the Lord.
Totally was hoping they would zoom in on The Grand Tetons National Park.
The huge chest tumors… Haha
I find it funny tat Pittsburg is named after pit dwellers… my dad grew up tere.
and,, I find it funny that you have a phobia of the letter “H”
It should be republic of westland. westland would be the island.
Westland’s wrong anyway.
This is not a world map, nor it shows the whole world. Actually, it only shows part of US, Europe, Asia and Middle America. Nothing of South America, Africa or Oceania is shown.
No, you’re all imbeciles. Amerigo Vespucci made clogs for a living.
What is a stanger? Wales and the SW peninsula of GB (Wessex maybe?) are apparently named after them. The graphics are nice but the translations are sloppy and inconsistent.
Rachel – Wales is the ‘Land of Strangers’ and Cornwall (though the label here goes well into Devon) is ‘Cape of Strangers’ – there appears to be a typo on both where the ‘r’ is missing. Wessex would be ‘West Stone Sword’ (based on what they have for a slightly misplaced Essex), and is not as far west as that – Oxenford, Bridgeplace and Southern Enclosed Farm roughly enclose the area that is West Stone Sword – Devon didn’t really become Saxon, so isn’t considered Wessex.
But your complaints are right – no idea what those big bold letters to the East of England are referring too, and the ‘York’ in New York is ‘Yew-tree Village’ (correct), whereas York, which is what New York is named after (via the Duke of York) is ‘Earth Village’. Madness!
I think this is a great project and a great effort, even if not everything is perfect. My one gripe would be that Santo probably means Holy more often than Saint. And that my home territory isn’t on it. =)
These are cool, but I spot at least one mistake. “China” has absolutely no connection to “Rice.” The English term probably comes from Persian and is simply corruption of the family name of the first Chinese Emperor. In Chinese, “China” is “Zhongguo,” which translates perfectly into English as “Central Kingdom.” There are several other names for China like “Tianxia,” but I can’t think of any that have any connection to rice.
Rachel and Si. Wales is only the the land of the strangers to the English, it is derived from an old anglo- saxon word Wealas which means strangers. we have always called ourselves Cymru, which in Welsh means ‘the Land of Brothers’, and this name predates the English name by several hundred years.
Westland is not what Ireland translates to. That idea went out over a hundred years ago. Ireland comes from Éire which comes from the goddess Ériú and originally meant something like ‘abundance’. ‘Ire’ just happened to sound like a Norse word for
‘West’ that the Vikings applied to the Irish of the time.